Day at the Wall

Jake's family, the Gibbs, arranged for a small bus to take them to the Great Wall on Wednesday. They invited Ren, Justin, and I to accompany them. We boarded the bus at their downtown condo location and snaked our way through Beijing cars, trucks, buses, scooters, and bicycles. (I can't tell you how often, as we have made our way about the city in cars, taxis, and buses, how often we have narrowly missed being hit by a bicycle. Bicyclists own the road in Beijing, and if one is not careful, s/he will be plowed over by one). As we continued, the traffic ebbed and soon, the bus was on rural roads, passing by small towns whose signage indicated that we were far, far, far from home. Soon though, we began making our way through a few vehicles, then passed a parking lot, and then a sea of vehicles, buses, and pedestrians. All those photos we have seen of the Great Wall never included the mayhem and market place at the base of the mountains upon which the Wall is situated. I should've taken a picture of it all, but all I have is that photo of Ren and I eating noodles and mystery meat at an outdoor table. To access the Wall, we boarded a six-person tram. Then we mounted the Wall through a small portal: Wow! I can't say that I was overly or underly impressed with it all, except to say that, after all the pictures and lore, it was wonderful to be there. Truly, the Wall extends as far over peaks and valleys as I could see. 20 feet wide and 20 feet tall, with guard house every so often: The enormity of the construction project is what I was impressed with. The effort to get the materials to the site simply to begin construction would have been enormous!!! We meandered about on the steep inclines and sometimes very shallow rising steps and sometimes very steeply rising steps for about two hours. We descended on a chair lift over the tobogan run (that we could have used to descend if we were willing to wait in line for an hour) that you can see pictured in one of the photos. At the base, we milled about for another 90 minutes, eating, shopping, and almost buying a banana that one woman asked $3 for. I declined and did not even try to enter negotiations. EVERYTHING is negotiable in a Chinese market! We sacked out on the hour bus ride back to Beijing.

--Mike V.